3Com Enterprise Network Switch Module

3Com Enterprise Network Switch Module

A 3Com switch is a useful tool when you need to send, receive, process, and forward packets to various devices throughout a network. Each of these switches uses standard gigabit Ethernet jacks. This feature makes it easy to configure systems on the fly whenever you attach or remove a device from a network.

You can configure a 3Com switch box to use different layers, depending on which ones the switch supports. There are five layers total, although not every switch supports all five. Keep in mind that the last layer is numbered seven instead of five, which is intended to help avoid conflicts with some historical standards. You will find that your networking switch works with at least two of the following layers.

• Layer 1: Network hubs
• Layer 2: Bridges
• Layer 3: Physical Ethernet router functions
• Layer 4: Vendor-dependent functionality
• Layer 7: Application transactions

Some 3Com SuperStack boxes come with a fiber trunk adapter, which means that they are capable of passing traffic over extremely fast networks. There is 128-gigabit hardware available that uses this type of configuration. This allows you to work with transceiver hardware at speeds beyond what is normally offered by software emulation. Fast Ethernet users can also typically get full speeds out of their systems with this kind of a switch box.

Whether your box features wireless capability or requires you to attach a cable, you should be able to use it with asynchronous-transfer-mode (ATM) networks as long as it features an ATM graphic on the label. 3Com Corporation produces a number of boxes that support this technology. This makes them compatible with most interfaces from other vendors that support the box as well. If your network already supports ATM signaling over Ethernet cables, then you won't have to configure anything else to get it working.

Each 3Com SFP stick works like a full-sized switch placed into a tiny package. This means you can use it with any piece of 3Com equipment that supports this form factor. You won't notice any drop in speed despite the reduced size. Most of these sticks can be swapped out as soon as they're unmounted.

Since each transceiver uses standard communication protocols, it doesn't matter whether clients use computers running Windows, Linux, or UNIX. As long as they can interface with Ethernet cabling, they should receive a connection as soon as they plug directly into a switching hub. Management protocols based on SNMP technology should work normally as well.